The Court held that VCAT's summary dismissal of a second proceeding as a duplicate of an earlier proceeding dismissed for non-appearance was not an error of law, even though the Tribunal failed to identify the specific statutory power (s 75 VCAT Act) or legal principle (abuse of process) relied upon, and failed to give the applicant an opportunity to be heard before dismissing. On the procedural fairness breach, the Court applied the materiality threshold from LPDT v Minister for Immigration, holding that even had the applicant been heard, the Tribunal could not properly have reached a different result given the duplicative nature of the claim and the applicant's repeated non-appearances at prior hearings. The Court also held that adding a claim for interest to an otherwise identical claim does not create a different cause of action, and that changing the nominal applicant while pursuing the same underlying debt on behalf of the same person does not make the proceeding materially different.
The full text is available to signed-in members.